


emulsion

by prolix



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Established Relationship, Listen Guys It's Just Robots Pole Dancing, M/M, Pole Dancing, Post-Mutiny, Post-Transformers: Lost Light 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-27
Updated: 2017-09-27
Packaged: 2019-01-06 02:56:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12202488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prolix/pseuds/prolix
Summary: “Yeah, see? This is what we probably need! I mean… I mean… that’s what we need, right, Rung? Something to get our minds off of - y’know?”Rung had lifted his head from his arms, blinked sleepily, nodded, and collapsed back down into recharge.“Then it’s settled! I’ll go make the bar look nice, you guys figure out what we should do.”





	emulsion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DragonNoodles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonNoodles/gifts).



> so, it's four AM. oops.  
> for my darling dragonnoodles, who gave me the idea and enabled me to take it this far - sasha, i love you, but what the fuck.  
> anyway, enjoy! and i love you. 
> 
> muse(ic) is let's dance to joy division by the wombats
> 
> obligatory warning label : references to empurata here and the way it's difficult for whirl, so be prepared for non-consensual body modification references, body dysphoria, some light self-hatred sprinkled in, mentions of canonical character death, and the grief felt by that death, but really this is a nice story of robots working a pole ^^

 

It’s a party atmosphere aboard the _Lost Light._

By all accounts, it shouldn’t be - the ripped-open wounds of Getaway’s mutiny and the deaths of Skids and Ravage on the Necroworld still curl through the mecha onboard; Rodimus confined himself to his quarters once they were on board, after Perceptor and First Aid had stepped forward to meet them at the docking entrance of the _Light_ and declared the mutiny _“handled”._ Perceptor had looked instantly over Rodimus’ shoulder to find Brainstorm, and had awkwardly coughed and shuffled his pedes and pontificated in front of him until the other mech had thrown his arms around him and declared him missed.

They’d all eventually congregated at Swerve’s bar. The little guy had seemed like he’d missed the joint, and it had been disused while Getaway ran the boat judging by the surprised flicker of the overhead lights, the stacks of dirtied energon cubes still in their place by the washer in the back, and the stacks of unmoved chairs in the far corner.

“You know what we should do?” Swerve had said, plopped at one of the far tables as mecha dripped in, one by one, unsure of what else to do or where to go when everything seemed strange and too _quiet_ now. Like someone had moved all the furniture in their home to a slightly different degree, had changed all their pictures to near-exact replicas, had fucked with a space they thought was _secure_ if not always _safe_ . Swerve had been unusually non-hyperverbal on the ride back to the _Light,_ staring at his entwined servos in long stretches of silence. ( _“Skids,”_ Rung says quietly to anyone who asks, _“He’s mourning his amica, he’s mourning Skids.”_ )

“We should have a little shindig,” he continues blithely when no one responds to him, “A ‘we’re alive and back home!’ type thing. With booze. Lots and lots of booze.”

“Booze sounds like a plan,” Whirl had said. Swerve beamed at him.

“Yeah, see? This is what we probably need! I mean… I mean… that’s what we need, right, Rung? Something to get our minds off of - y’know?”

Rung had lifted his head from his arms, blinked sleepily, nodded, and collapsed back down into recharge.

“Then it’s settled! I’ll go make the bar look nice, you guys figure out what we should do.”

 

x

 

“Are you gonna try, Whirl?” Tailgate calls from across the bar, where he’s kicking his pedes under the lip of his chair, too small to even fully touch the ground. Cyclonus tilts his head at him, not the way Drift is a couple seats over, or Perceptor closer to the bar near Brainstorm - their optics, and Whirl’s gotten really fuckin’ good at reading people’s optics, have to when that’s the defining characteristic of your own face - with something that shines and says _‘look at claw-hands, thinks he’s going to spin around like the rest of us, thinks he’s like Rodimus, like Perceptor, like anyone in this room with_ hands’.

He looks, as far as Whirl can tell, interested.

Whirl clicks at Tailgate. Shrugs.

“Sure, panic legs, why not?”

Swerve looks up from behind the bar as Brainstorm taps the top of his helm to get his attention. Next to him, Chromedome leans forward and says something, and Swerve turns toward Whirl with wide optics.

“I think you’re the last act of the night, Whirl,” the little mech says, smiling, and everyone looks up toward him at the words. Rodimus sits back and smiles to himself - he’d, naturally, gone first. Even Rewind had given it a - _ahem_ \- _swing,_ even though only Chromedome was really paying attention at that point.

“We’ll really go out with a bang, then, heh - anyway, any song in particular you want to hear?”

Whirl tests the flex of his claw over the pole, where the metal caught and where it was loose against his pincher. Figuring out just how to _hold_ things had gotten challenging in the early stages of him, grumpy horns mcGreat Sword, and panic legs being a thing, but by now he’d gotten used to it. There was a certain finesse to these things, really, that was all a part of the empurata vic experience. He sends a backward glance to his propellers to figure out where they’d swing, and _tck_ s. _Rodimus_ and _Rewind_ didn’t have to figure this kind of thing out, fuckers. Perceptor, maybe, but his microscope wasn’t as difficult as two big-ass propellers and chassis guns.

“Tailgate,” he calls, not taking his optic away from the flex of his claw over the metal - how the _fuck -_ “I dunno. Pick for me.”

From the front, he catches First Aid chuckle, and cuts him a glare. Tailgate, he’d learned, had _great_ taste in music, especially after he’d been exposed to human music after the whole Swearth debacle. Little guy liked to bop around on Cyclonus’ berth to radio transmissions Whirl could pick out from the static being beamed into deep space.

Tailgate pops off his chair and leans up over the lip of the bar to confer with Swerve. After a tic, Tailgate turns around and shoots him a thumbs-up, and Swerve consults the computer inset on the counter he’d had Perceptor hook up to the bar’s intercom for their little party.

After a beat, then another, something kicks in over the speakers.

Whirl tilts his helm, back, then forth, and nods to himself. Tailgate had played this before, for Cyclonus, in their room while Whirl was over once. It had a nice downbeat and Tailgate had said Swerve told him the singer was worshipped on Earth. He didn’t exactly have Cyclonus’ natural knack for rhythm, but at least he couldn’t perform any worse than Brainstorm had.

Whirl puts his ped forward, against the metal, adjusts his claw, and swings.

His momentum carries him a full circle, then another as he kicks off again.

_What was that thing Rodders did?_

Tightening his pinchers and paying attention to how far he can flex his abdomen before his hips hit his chassis, he turns the swing into an upwards arch, enough to grab the pole with his other claw and hook his legs.

_Huh._

From there he can let go of where his claws are and trust his legs will hold him - he’s done it enough in the loading bays of bomber planes keeping his legs inside the hatch while his upper body dangles. They hook over the pole where they meet his thigh, meaning he can arch one up even further and keep his position.

He’s noticed nobody’s speaking anymore, or he can’t hear them over the music.

Slowly, making sure he keeps his claws near the pole, he levels out until he’s horizontal, perpendicular to the pole, and holds it for as long as he can. Experimentally he sees if he can swing like this - which, as he flexes his leg, he _can_ \- and does a lazy circle completely parallel to the floor. Now he’s positive nobody’s talking.

From this position he can only really arch up, so he angles his chassis away from the pole and grabs onto the pole, releasing his legs’ hold but keeping them against the metal in a wide v and letting his momentum take him around again. He keeps one arm hooked just above where his propellers rest and drops his legs until he can feel himself slow, then puts one leg around and bends his waist forward until he can comfortably keep himself balanced, releases his leg and archs it at an angle behind him so he can grab the pole with another claw.

From the front he can hear First Aid’s fans kick into a low hum. Whirl’s grip falters and his swing wobbles.

Cyclonus is probably shaking his head like he does when Tailgate wants a piggy-back ride, Whirl tells himself, Tailgate’s probably horrified. The guy the whole ship knows you’re fraggin’ up on a pole making an idiot of himself to a song from a planet he’s never been to. It makes Whirl relax a bit - that he can handle, the idea he’s not doing well enough, that Rodimus is in the back of the bar right now comparing his performance to Whirl’s and grinning to himself, awarding himself a Rodimus star, and Perceptor’s already gotten bored and is entertaining himself by making corrections to the calculations Brainstorm’s scribbling on the bar counter.

He builds enough speed to climb upward again, letting his legs relax as they cross in front of him over the pole. They tighten as he spins, claws dropped and his torso flexed backwards until it makes contact with the metal. Carefully, like he does when he tests the trigger on a new gun, he lets his legs part enough to let him slide downward while retaining his motion. It’s easy like fighting, but the motions are slower, less direct, but directed in the same way toward one target - Con, pole, same thing. He was never the acrobat in the Wreckers, that was more Blurr’s job, and Whirl was happier drilling bullets down the middle of a mech then snapping off his helm than putting him in a chokehold with his thighs like Drift does.

Whirl hooks the bottom of his leg where it meets his ped around the pole, releases his other leg, and for a moment just dangles by his ankle as he turns, then arches back up the way he did before and grabs onto the pole as high up as he can, and in a swift movement flips over to put his back to the pole. His claws are able to make the quick motion, which means he doesn’t fall, but from this position there isn’t much he can think of to do.

Until, there is.

 _Ha, fuck you, Percy,_ I _don’t need an Academy education to figure_ this _out._

Hyper-aware of his own frame in a way he doesn’t like to be, Whirl links his legs almost at the base of the pole, slowing him down completely, then in one movement brings them up and around so he can hook his cockpit over the curve of the pole at a sharp enough angle to almost poke at his hips. He’s never been one for forethought, so the idea that he could easily drop onto his ass when he lets go of the pole with his legs _and_ claws doesn’t occur to him until he’s in mid-motion, and by then it’s too late. He grips the pole with only his chassis and waist, legs coming up to spread wide into a v, claws almost instantly back onto the pole so he can release and swing. He takes a full circle, then another, until it dawns on him the music’s stopped.

Whirl drops fully back onto solid ground. Still, no one in the bar is talking, and it takes him the split-second to refocus from his next movement to his audience to understand why.

Tailgate’s visor is wide. Rewind has his servo clenched on Chromedome’s thigh. Brainstorm has dropped the stylus he was using to - _called it_ \- scribble on the counter with. Perceptor’s monocle is flashing. Rodimus’ jaw is slack.

“Huh,” Whirl says, feeling all of a sudden like he needs to _not be here,_ like he needs to recharge for a solid three hundred years and at the same time like he needs to launch himself into a meteor shower.

Then, with all the stoic grace that he can muster in the moment, Cyclonus stands up and claps in three short staccato bursts.

The fugue snaps. Ultra Magnus reaches over and closes Rodimus’ jaw for him. Swerve fumbles the glass he was cleaning but manages to set it down on the counter with an audible _thunk._

Whirl hops off the stage and makes his way toward Cyclonus and Tailgate without another word.

“Well done,” Cyclonus greets him.

“H- how did you learn how to _do all that?”_ Tailgate says. He looks like he’s run a mile on those little legs.

Whirl cocks his helm at them both, feeling his plating itch.

“You two finished here? Can we get back to our quarters or what?”

Tailgate jolts and scrambles down from his chair, sending Whirl a beatific look. The little mech looks to Cyclonus, who is scanning the room. He nods, takes one of Whirl’s pinchers with his own servo, and gestures for Whirl to lead the way.

 

x

 

(“So,” croaks Swerve after resetting his vocal queue several times.

“Whirl wins.”

Everyone, one after the other, nods vaguely in shock and turns back to their drinks.)

**Author's Note:**

> post script : whirl's song is beyonce's partition (i am a staunch believer in everyone on the lost light loving beyonce); rodimus' song was probably you've got the touch; rewind's song was seeya by deadmau5, and perceptor's song was something like cazette's she wants me dead, most likely. other notable performances were brainstorm with brianstorm by arctic monkeys, and swerve with something by the gorillaz
> 
> \- p


End file.
